"The Viable" Demon Assassin (Guide)
Introduction This guide is made with the intent of helping you play the Demon Assassin to its fullest potential. That is, to carry out its fundamental role: delivering insane burst damage and using your swap GG move wisely and efficiently. The is key in finding those 1 v 1s to drop in on unexpectedly and finish the job. All of the protips still apply. You're not gonna have endless mana and you're not gonna be an unkillable tank. You're not gonna be the fastest DG (possibly) until higher levels, but hopefully you will be able to use the aforementioned skills to wreak some DPS havoc! The Build Level 1: Spine Attack I Level 2: Demon Speed I Level 3: Warp Strike I Level 4: Spine Attack II Level 5: Shadow Swap I Level 6: Warp Strike II Level 7: Spine Attack III Level 8: Warp Strike III Level 9: Save Level 10: Spine Attack IV + Shadow Swap II Level 11: Warp Strike IV Level 12: Demon Speed II Level 13: Demon Speed III Level 14: Save Level 15: Shadow Swap III + Deadly Warp Level 16-20: Elusiveness to Assassin's Speed and a point wherever Essentially you're gonna want to maximize your Spine Attack and Warp Strike abilities as soon as possible. Take Demon Speed I early on to gain a quick advantage to movement speed. Itemization Starting items: Scaled Helm + Scalemail Favor Item: Blood of the Fallen Alternatives: Essence of Magic (only need Vlemish, replace Plenor with an hp/armor item like Duelist Cuirass, get banded and scalemail off the break) OR Staff of Renewal General Item Order: Banded Armor Vlemish Faceguard Unbreakable Boots Nimoth Chestguard (Sell Scalemail) Plenor Battlecrown (Sell Scaled Helm) Hauberk of Life (Sell Banded) Narmoth's Ring (Sell Hauberk) After your team attains Giants (unless you have a ton of money): Hungarlings Crown (Sell Vlemish) Groffling Warplate (Sell Nimoth) ' ' Consumables (the standard): Teleport Scrolls Sigil Flag Lock Potions where necessary Gameplay At the start you've got your Blood of the Fallen, some armor, and a bit of mana regen. A nice mix, but you should still be careful. Scare DGs off or soften them with a few ranged spine attacks. Then Warp strike in and push with some auto attack. Experience will tell you when you have the upper hand and can be the aggressor (i.e. opponent has lower health, no mana, etc). As always, Unbreakable Boots are amazing so try to get those soon. After the initial shop stop, you should always have a Teleport Scroll on you, and once DGs start to hit level 6-7 you should always have a sigil as well. When you play DA you need to crunch numbers really quick. Specifically, how much mana you have left, how much damage a warp/spine attack would do, and how much HP your opponent has so you can determine the best way to kill. Sometimes casting warp strike and spine immediately scare the prey off. It may be best when you have the upperhand to Warp strike in, do some auto attack, then when they try to flee, hit them with spine attack. Or, if you have the mana for it, a brutal Swap/Warp/Spine combo. Also, the DA (much like Erebus with bat swarm) excels at 2 v 1 ganking by Warp striking in. Naturally, after you warp strike in for a 2 v 1, you should expect your opponent to retreat, and so be ready to pull off a quick shadow swap followed by an instant warp strike. Then try to auto-attack/warp strike them down until their HP is low enough to finish with a deadly spine attack. It is ideal to have superior speed as you will often need to cover some ground to start auto-attacking after a warp strike. I prefer to at least put 1 point into Demon Speed early-on to assist with this. Later on, build up speed even more after Warp Strike and Spine attack are maxed. Things to Keep in Mind - Farm the squishiest Demigod. '''I know this is gonna sound obvious, but be aware of how much HP the DGs on the field have. Demigods like Regulus and Torch Bearer are pretty obvious choices, but depending on the player, sometimes they're not the squishiest, and have stacked an insane amount of HP gear. I've seen terrible Unclean Beast players with 3k hp while a Regulus has 4.5k+. I know it's evil, but it never hurts to peep the stats of everyone beforehand and secretly decide that you're going to make the worst player's life miserable. That's how you play like the pros! If you farm a horrible teammate enough, you can attain enough money to overpower the stronger ones! Key for DA victory. - '''Remember that Shadow Swap can be an escape/saving move. If an ally is getting dangerously close to dying, move to where you want the opponent to be, and then shadow swap him out thus saving your ally. - Likewise, if you're getting flanked from multiple angles, Shadow Swap with the enemy who is in the best position to make an escape. You often need to think fast as shadow swap is useless when they are both on top of you. - Use Warp Strike to cover ground faster. Use it to cap flags faster by targeting grunts on top of the flag. Use it to retreat by targeting enemy creeps or towers behind you when you've pushed too far. - Try to maximize the range of your Shadow Swaps '(without missing the swap of course). This takes a little practice so you don't miss the swap, but run backwards or to your allies slightly right before a swap. This gives your allies more time to get into a better position while renewing cooldowns for a second round of beatdown. -' Don't Shadow Swap for no reason! I feel kind of stupid having to mention this, but I've seen so many bad DAs run up to me and open with a Shadow Swap. Why? I have no idea. They just wasted mana and a cooldown on a useful spell. If you're going to Shadow Swap, make sure it serves a purpose like prolonging a retreat or pulling Demigods into mines or your allies or behind towers. Maximize its use! - Be quick with Shadow Swaps to counter things such as Robust Healing Potions and Portals. This is essentially the DA's only natural interrupt spell (besides killing the DG of course), so make sure it's ready for times when an opponent might try to port away. Acknowledgements The guide was originally written by Kurt Peterson after observing "DiceAreEvil", an acquaintance with Down Syndrome, repeatedly lose matches to random n00bs. Peterson befriended him out of pity, and developed the guide as a means to help the man overcome his crippling sense of inadequacy. "DiceAreEvil" then posted it to the forums as his own creation. The guide was originally posted of December 9, 2009 in the official "Demigod Strategies" forum.Category:Demon Assassin GuidesCategory:Guides